U.S. Judge Says Motorola Mobility Can't Use FRAND Patents for Injunction Against Microsoft

After weeks of hearings between Motorola Mobility and Microsoft over standard essential patents, a Seattle judge has ruled that no injunction is necessary seeing as both sides have already agreed to a licensing agreement. The two have tangoed over how much a patent holder, in this case Motorola, can charge when it’s considered part of an industry standard.

Microsoft complained that Motorola asked for too much money for the standard-essential patents, and fought back against Motorola’s attempts to ban devices such as the Xbox 360, among others. Under FRAND, companies agree to license standard-essential patents at a reasonable rate, but Motorola’s demands were anything but.

For its trouble, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is actually preparing an antitrust suite against Google, which owns Motorola, because of the way the manufacturer has been handling its standard-essential patents. Motorola, in its defense, said it offered Microsoft similar terms it charged other companies to use its streaming tech.

A similar decision was issued by Judge Robart in a German court earlier this year; a new order is set to be made by Robart in January that prevents Motorola from requesting injunctive relief in the U.S.

The decision will be a key one “because it will clarify one area of the increasingly contentious relationships between technology companies, particularly in mobile computing where standards need to be shared,” The Wall Street Journal wrote.